was a

stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

Naniwa-ku, Osaka is one of 24 wards of Osaka, Japan. It has an area of 4.37 km², and a population of 51,567. General information Largely a residential area itself, Naniwa-ku is adjacent to and has in recent years blurred into the Namba district, wh ...

, Japan. It opened in 1950, with a capacity of 32,000 people. It was built over the site of a red-brick tobacco plant which was destroyed during the

bombing of Osaka The bombing of Osaka during World War II first took place from the middle of the night on March 13, 1945, to the early morning of the next day. There were also bomb raids on June 1, 6, 7, 15, 26, July 10, 24, and August 14, the last day of the war ...

during World War II. The stadium was torn down in 1998 and was replaced by the office and shopping complex of

Namba Parks Namba Parks (なんばパークス ''Nanba Pākusu'') is an office and shopping complex located in Namba-naka Nichome, Naniwa-ku, Osaka, Japan, the south of Namba Station on Nankai Railway. It consists of a high-rise office building called P ...

in several stages, with final construction ending in April 2007. The stadium was primarily used for

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

and was home of the

Nankai Hawks The are a Japanese professional baseball team based in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture. They compete in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) as a member of the Pacific League. The team was formerly known as the Nankai Hawks and was based in Osaka. ...

until they moved to the

Heiwadai Stadium was a Baseball park, ballpark located in the Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. From 1950 to 1978, it served as the home ballpark of the Nishitetsu Lions, a team in Nippon Professional Baseball's (NPB) Pacific League. It also briefly served as ...

Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...

(subsequently becoming the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks, and are now the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks) in 1988.

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...

kicked off her

Who's That Girl World Tour The Who's That Girl World Tour (billed as Who's That Girl World Tour 1987) was the second concert tour by American singer and songwriter Madonna. The tour supported her 1986 third studio album '' True Blue'', as well as the 1987 soundtrack ''Who ...

at the stadium with two sold-out concerts on June 14 and 15, 1987. They were her first concerts in Japan.

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

concluded the first leg of his

Bad World Tour Bad was the first solo concert tour by American singer Michael Jackson, launched in support of his seventh studio album '' Bad'' (1987). Sponsored by Pepsi and spanning 16 months, the tour included 123 concerts for over 4.4 million fans across ...

at the stadium, with three consecutive sold-out shows on October 10–12, 1987.

Gallery

File:Osaka studium air 1985.jpg, Osaka stadium in 1985 from air, taken by

MLIT The , abbreviated MLIT, is a ministry of the Japanese government.国土交通省設置法

. File:Osaka Stadium.jpg, Osaka stadium in 1988, (Taken from the right field) File:Osaka Stadium 1989.jpg, Scoreboard and backstand from the left field in 1989.

Gallery

References

See also